The West Kendall Baptist Hospital, in Miami, Florida, celebrated the first US installation of the new Revolution Computed Tomography (CT) scanner last month.

GE Chairman and CEO, Jeff Immelt, visited the hospital for a tour and reception with local business leaders and Baptist health executives.

CT has been around for a while, but the technical advances in the Revolution CT scanner allow uncompromised image quality and clinical capabilities for even the most difficult cases.

Computed tomography works by passing an X-ray beam through the body. The X-rays are absorbed, reflected and refracted by the muscle, fat, bone and sinew our bodies are made up of. The X-rays that make it through to the detector panel on the other side of the sample are processed into a ‘slice’ through the body.

Radiologists are very careful with these scans: they need several ‘takes’, from different angles, to get a clearer picture of what’s going on. What’s more, the dose of X-rays passed through the body throughout the process needs to be closely monitored.

In 2013, GE introduced a new, superfast scanner called Revolution CT that allowed doctors to routinely obtain clear 3D images of the beating heart, lungs, liver and other organs.

More than just a series of small steps, these improvements in CT are nothing short of a giant leap for medical imaging. Nowadays, a CT scan will often be the first course of action when investigating a patient’s illness.

Using a low dose of X-rays, Revolution CT acquires fully rotatable 3D images of organs and body systems with speed and accuracy, giving physicians the ability to diagnose even the most challenging patients.

“According to our physicians, patient feedback about their experience with the Revolution CT has been uniformly positive,” said West Kendall Baptist Hospital CEO Javier Hernández-Lichtl. “The advanced design definitely makes for a less intimidating, more comfortable patient experience, while yielding amazingly accurate and detailed images. The Revolution CT is truly revolutionary, and we are pleased to have had early access to this technology.”

The Revolution CT has been in operation at the hospital since September 2014, after a six-month on-site clinical trial was conducted – the first such trial in the world.

“We are grateful to West Kendall Baptist Hospital’s physicians for their collaboration and rigorous testing during the trial,” said Mr. Immelt. “The Revolution CT is designed for use in all clinical areas and provides answers from one CT scan with uncompromised image quality at a very low dose. A core component of our strategy at GE Healthcare is to partner with customers to understand their clinical and operational needs and in turn develop next-generation technology that deliver the necessary outcomes.”